February 10, 2013

The species that you and all other living human beings on this planet belong to is Homo sapiens. During a time of dramatic climate change 200,000 years ago,Homo sapiens (modern humans) evolved in Africa. Is the human species entering another evolutionary inflection point?

Paul Davies, a British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative at Arizona State University, says in his new book The Eerie Silence that any aliens exploring the universe will be AI-empowered machines. Not only are machines better able to endure extended exposure to the conditions of space, but they have the potential to develop intelligence far beyond the capacity of the human brain.

"I think it very likely – in fact inevitable – that biological intelligence is only a transitory phenomenon, a fleeting phase in the evolution of the universe," Davies writes. "If we ever encounter extraterrestrial intelligence, I believe it is overwhelmingly likely to be post-biological in nature."

Before the year 2020, scientists are expected to launch intelligent space robots that will venture out to explore the universe for us.

"Robotic exploration probably will always be the trail blazer for human exploration of far space," says Wolfgang Fink, physicist and researcher at Caltech. "We haven't yet landed a human being on Mars but we have a robot there now. In that sense, it's much easier to send a robotic explorer. When you can take the human out of the loop, that is becoming very exciting."

As the growing global population continues to increase the burden on the Earth’s natural resources, senior curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Roger Launius, thinks that we'll have to alter human biology to prepare to colonize space.

In the September issue of Endeavour, Launius takes a look at the historical debate surrounding human colonization of the solar system. Experiments have shown that certain life forms can survive in space. Recently, British scientists found that bacteria living on rocks taken from Britain's Beer village were able to survive 553 days in space, on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). The microbes returned to Earth alive, proving they could withstand the harsh environment.

Humans, on the other hand, are unable to survive beyond about a minute and a half in space without significant technological assistance. Other than some quick trips to the moon and the ISS, astronauts haven’t spent too much time too far away from Earth. Scientists don’t know enough yet about the dangers of long-distance space travel on human biological systems. A one-way trip to Mars, for example, would take approximately six months. That means astronauts will be in deep space for more than a year with potentially life-threatening consequences.

Launius, who calls himself a cyborg for using medical equipment to enhance his own life, says the difficult question is knowing where to draw the line in transforming human biological systems to adapt to space. Credit: NASA/Brittany Green

“If it's about exploration, we're doing that very effectively with robots,” Launius said. “If it's about humans going somewhere, then I think the only purpose for it is to get off this planet and become a multi-planetary species.”

Stephen Hawking agrees: "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking told the Big Think website in August. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet.”

If humans are to colonize other planets, Launius said it could well require the "next state of human evolution" to create a separate human presence where families will live and die on that planet. In other words, it wouldn't really be Homo sapien sapiens that would be living in the colonies, it could be cyborgs—a living organism with a mixture of organic and electromechanical parts—or in simpler terms, part human, part machine.

"There are cyborgs walking about us," Launius said. "There are individuals who have been technologically enhanced with things such as pacemakers and cochlea ear implants that allow those people to have fuller lives. I would not be alive without technological advances."

The possibility of using cyborgs for space travel has been the subject of research for at least half a century. A seminal article published in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline titled “Cyborgs and Space” changed the debate, saying that there was a better alternative to recreating the Earth’s environment in space, the predominant thinking during that time. The two scientists compared that approach to “a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land.” They felt that humans should be willing to partially adapt to the environment to which they would be traveling.

“Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space,” Clynes and Kline wrote.

“It does raise profound ethical, moral and perhaps even religious questions that haven't been seriously addressed,” Launius said. “We have a ways to go before that happens.”

Some experts such as medical ethicist Grant Gillett believe that the danger is that we might end up producing a psychopath because we don't quite understand the nature of cyborgs.

NASA, writes Lauris, still isn’t focusing much research on how to improve human biological systems for space exploration. Instead, its Human Research Program is focused on risk reduction: risks of fatigue, inadequate nutrition, health problems and radiation. While financial and ethical concerns may have held back cyborg research, Launius believes that society may have to engage in the cyborg debate again when space programs get closer to launching long-term deep space exploration missions.

“If our objective is to become space-faring people, it's probably going to force you to reconsider how to reengineer humans,’ Launius said.

Comments

Reading this thought-provoking article triggered two observations: First, I realized that, if this sort of cyborg research were farther along, Stephen Hawkings, at his choosing, might be bio-mechanically adapted to become perhaps our first interplanetary, if not interstellar, explorer of consequence. Further, if the technology gels and flourishes, severely physically-impaired but mentally capable people could literally choose to become intrepid space pioneers - what a potential gift of purpose and expanded existence to such as these! Second observation - or question -- what would we designate such a new "species"? Homo Cyber-sapiens? ... :) ...

Somehow I don't think we're mature enough to play God with ourselves. Any advances would have two applications and while it's great to look towards a utopian future; at this time I think we should never overlook the darker side of the human equation.

Terry: Playing at discovery of the unknown is not godlike. The omniscient Christian God need not discover a single thing to confront a problem. In fact, the Biblical God was quite comfortable forbidding humans to do this or that, even if the consequences of such inquiry were minor. Consider if the epithet "playing God" is a projection by those who would forbid the quest for new solutions by an appeal to authority. Seeking solutions is very un-god like. What does God need with a starship? There are many reasons why our biological bodies might need the technological leaps available only through persistent inquiry.

"theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, etc" - don't trust people that wear too many hats, thus jack of all trades, master of nothing :-)
Other than that, an exercise of "in the box thinking" !

Intelligent robots by 2020? Give it a rest. And at 10% of the speed of light, it would take a probe 1,000,000 years to get to the far side of the galaxy. This means that we have to be able to program probes to answer questions that our descendants will want answered a million years from now. 0.1c is much, much faster than our current technology. Out of the box? Yes. In touch with reality? No.

simplicity is the quet of the designer. this being true we should all evolve into single cell organisms. that would be a perfect singular existence . no further to go.
as the universe expands exponentially ,"Back to One"...